Monday, February 3, 2014

Oh snap!Say it ain't so!!Only it is so.The Great Satan Whahabbi Arabia Hook Up is like getting all fracturiously fracturedThe strategic hello betwixt Saudiland and Great Satan spans eons - every since 32 cut a deal with King Abdulaziz ibn Saud onboard USS QuincyOnly now...

Saudi rulers are questioning America’s reliability as an ally and protector. They see the U.S. gradually relinquishing its pre-eminent role and allowing revolutionary Iran to expand its sphere of influence. As a result, the Saudis have launched a risky new foreign policy, one that discards the low-key, risk-averse, quiet diplomacy of previous years in favor of an assertive, high-risk, high-profile effort to shape the outcome of the many crises in the region.It all started changing after the Arab uprisings toppled strongmen who had been allied with Washington. The Saudis and other American partners were troubled to find America turning its back on stalwart allies. They found it deeply disturbing when America refused to support Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and became downright alarmed when the U.S. tried to do business with the Muslim Brotherhood after one of its leaders, Mohammed Morsi, became president.

But the defining turning point for Riyadh came last August, when 44 announced he had decided to bomb the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after Assad crossed Obama’s “red line,” using chemical weapons in his fight against a domestic uprising. Riyadh favored American intervention, but when 44 backed away from that position, the Saudis, who had already started growing restless with 44 ’s policies, decided to take matters into their own hands.

Even before the Syria decision, Saudi Arabia had expressed frustration with Washington in the strongest of terms. The Saudis now have a long list of complaints against U.S. foreign policy, and they are voicing them in an uncharacteristically open mannerWhen the U.S. led world powers in making an interim deal with Iran over its nuclear program, Saudi Arabia, which had once famously asked the U.S. to “cut off the head of the snake” and attack Iran, now spoke bitterly about the American approach to Tehran. A senior adviser to the royal family complained, “We were lied to, things were hidden from us.”

At last week’s meeting in Davos, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former intelligence chief, fulminated against Obama’s handling of the Middle East. “It’s not just about Iran [and] Syria,” he said. “It’s the sense of no direction.”

While the U.S. focuses on diplomacy, Bandar has engaged in a risky push to help the Syrian opposition topple the Assad regime. A victory by Assad is seen as unacceptable by Saudi Arabia, which sees Syria as a key element of Iran’s strategy to achieve regional hegemony.

The Saudis have repeatedly said they would like the U.S. to lead a much more forceful push to stop the carnage in Syria and bring an end to the Assad regime. Speaking at a Davos meeting, Turki argued that the U.S. should go to the Security Council and “get a resolution that forces should be deployed to stop the fighting in Syria.” If that fails, he said, the U.S. should press for the creation of humanitarian corridors to keep Syrians from starving to death.

The Saudis now find themselves facing a triple threat. First, they worry about Iran, their traditional Shiite Persian enemy, whose political ideology calls for spreading Islamist revolution to other Muslim countries. Iran’s recent resurgence in light of the interim nuclear agreement makes it appear as a rising threat to the kingdom. Second, the Saudis worry about the Arab uprisings and their ability to disrupt the status quo in the kingdom and in the region, while raising the strength of organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which the royal family rightly sees as a threat to its rule over much of the ArabianPeninsula.

The third threat is America’s apparent retreat from its position of dominance and full engagement in the Middle East. That makes the Saudis feel vulnerable, as they see Iran seeking to fill the void.

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